


Te Amo, Idiota

by The_Jade_Goblin



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Saphael, but all the fluff, insecure!simon, pre-slash i guess, reassuring!(kind of)raphael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 09:03:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6323281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Jade_Goblin/pseuds/The_Jade_Goblin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Raphael angrily sends him away again, the dejected Simon gets himself lost in the rain just before dawn, and Raphael comes to find his idiota fledgling. He may also care about Simon a lot more than he lets on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Te Amo, Idiota

**Author's Note:**

> written for Downworlder Week; Vampire Day

Simon probably shouldn’t be out here. Sunrise was fairly soon, it was dangerous for a vampire to be so far from the nest at this hour. But he’d needed to get away. Well maybe not needed, more like sent away. Raphael had gotten fed up with him and yelled at him to go away, and so away Simon went. It wasn’t unusual that Simon annoyed Raphael to the point of anger, so he’d gotten used to being sent away. He was sure that Raphael sent him away as an alternative to attacking him.

Simon sighed, ducking his head as he kept walking along the dimly lit streets. It shouldn’t be upsetting him as much as it was, but it was. Simon felt like such a screw-up, like he couldn’t do anything right. As a mundane, he was an unimportant geek with a bad band, he was hopelessly friendzoned by his best friend that he loved and was too awkward to ever break that pattern. Now, as a vampire, he was just as unimportant, a Downworlder beneath his own best friend, Clary the all-important Shadowhunter. He couldn’t hunt because it made him feel sick, he couldn’t control his anger or his fangs or his desire to bite people very well, he couldn’t handle his own speed and he couldn’t get used to sleeping during the day. He was still just as much of a geek as he was as a mundane, but now he was unrelatable. Most the other vampires were too old to understand his references and most disliked him anyway. Really the only one that even talked to him was Raphael.

During his lessons with Raphael, he kept messing up or spacing out or goofing off, and Raphael wasn’t the most patient of people to work with someone as annoying as Simon. Simon usually wandered to The Jade Wolf when Raphael got angry with him, but the pack was out tonight. He’d go to visit Clary but the Institute was closed to Downworlders without invitation. He could technically go to Pandemonium to see Magnus, but he got the feeling Magnus wasn’t too fond of him, and he didn’t know him that well anyway it would be awkward. So he was stuck wandering around New York, with only a few hours before sunrise to make his way back to the Hotel Dumort, which he also may have forgotten the whereabouts to. He’d wandered so far he wasn’t sure how to get back.

It started raining as Simon rounded a corner, causing the young vampire to frown. Great, that’s all he needed. He plodded on though, unheeded by the rain. As a vampire he didn’t feel the cold, but he was still a fledgling, part of his human side still existed in his mind, so mentally the cold of the rain still pierced his skin, making him feel alive for the first time since he…well, died. The rain wasn’t so bad, he decided. He briefly wondered if vampires could get sick.

He trudged through the rain, thinking he should have brought a jacket. He was vaguely aware of noise in the distance, but paid no attention. It was probably some mundanes complaining about the rain. It was strange to think of humans as mundanes now, when not so long go Simon had been one of them. Now he had a new life, one he couldn’t even be good at. The noise got closer, and he half-turned his head to listen. Then he heard it, a Spanish curse over the rain. Raphael.

“ _Dios_ Simon!” he came into view through the rain then, and Simon stopped walking to let him catch up. “Where have you been? Sunrise is soon I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

“You…you have?” Simon blinked.

“Of course I have, I can’t have you bursting into flames come daybreak can I?” Raphael raged. “I don’t fancy having your Shadowhunter friend and her posse at my doorstep ready to kill me.”

“Oh…sorry…” of course he wasn’t concerned about Simon. Why would he? He hated him. “I was just…”

“You got yourself lost didn’t you?”

“No! I just…I mean I just…kinda…yeah, yeah I did.” Simon finished lamely.

Raphael sighed, and shook his head. “ _Idiota_ ,” he muttered. “Come on, let’s go home.”

Home. It was a strange thing for Simon to think of home and think of the Hotel Dumort. That wasn’t home to him. Home to him, was his soft bed and his loving mother and teasing sister, his best friend and his bandmates. Now, home was to be a hotel of blacked out windows, full of dead people who hated him, and a teacher who tolerated him for Clary’s sake, and for the sake of not winding up dead…or dead _er_.

Simon followed Raphael slowly, hanging back from the other vampire, crossing his arms over his chest to try and feel a bit warmer. He knew the cold was purely a mental thing, something his body expected and was reacting to, but knowing that didn’t make it go away.

“Should have brought a jacket,” he muttered.

“What are you mumbling back there?”

“Nothing. I just said I should have brought a jacket. I’m freezing in this rain.” Simon said louder.

There was a pause of silence, nothing but the rain between them, then suddenly a leather jacket was being shoved into Simon’s hands. Raphael walked briskly in front of him, not turning his head as he handed over his jacket.

“Don’t ruin it this time,” he said gruffly.

“But I can’t take –”

“Just take it _idiota_ ,” Raphael ordered. “You’ll make yourself sick at this rate, and vampires are not pleasant when they’re ill.”  

“Oh…?”

“No. We vomit blood, and suffer from rigamortis,” Raphael replied.

“Oh…” Simon shuddered, and put on the jacket.

It was a little small, Raphael being shorter than Simon, but it was warm and that’s all that mattered. Simon quickened his pace to catch up to Raphael, and walked behind him in silence. He wondered how long Raphael had been looking for him, probably long enough to get doubly annoyed with him. He couldn’t do anything right, not even go away. The rain softened a bit, slowing until it was only a light sprinkle. He mumbled an apology, staring down at the ground.

“What are you saying now?” Raphael turned his head to see Simon had stopped walking. He walked back to him and asked him to repeat himself again.

“…M’sorry…” Simon mumbled, still staring at the ground.

Raphael raised his eyebrows. “For what?” he asked.

“For I dunno, everything? For being such a screw up, for making you look for me, for making you put up with me, I know I’m annoying, I can’t do anything right…I just can’t get anything right or do anything about annoying people, and I’m sorry…”

Raphael’s face fell. “Oh _p_ _equeño_ ,” he murmured, almost to himself. “ _No te disculpes. No hay nada que disculpar.”_

Simon didn’t know what Raphael had said, but his comforting tone made him feel better. He didn’t know Raphael could sound so gentle.  

“What…did you just…?” Simon stammered.

“You don’t need to apologise,” Raphael translated. “ _Lo siento_ Simon, _I’m_ sorry.”

“Why are _you_ sorry?” Simon blinked.

“Look at you,” Raphael gestured to Simon. “You’re lost in the city, hours before sunrise, looking like a drowned rat, because I got angry at yelled at you.”

“That’s not your fault…” Simon mumbled, looking down.

Raphael tipped his head back up with his fingers, and smirked slightly.

“Just accept my apology, they’re very rare.” He said.

“Okay…”

Raphael’s fingers left the underside of Simon’s chin, and he momentarily mourned the loss.

“You’re still a fledgling, I must remember that.” Raphael said. “I should be looking after you, that’s my job. We all started where you have, you will learn in time.”

“But I can’t even handle my own speed,” Simon grumbled.

Raphael’s mouth twitched upwards slightly. “Neither could I. Kept running into walls,”

“I have trouble picturing that,” Simon said as they kept walking, but he was smiling again.

“That’s because I learned my lesson,” Raphael chuckled quietly. “You will learn yours too.”

Simon just sighed.

“You will learn _p_ _equeño,”_ Raphael said reassuringly. “This is an adjustment period. I am not very patient, and while you _are_ extremely annoying, you are still my fledgling and you are one of us. That’s what matters,”

“Thanks,” Simon muttered. But he wasn’t too offended, from the amused look on Raphael’s face he gathered he wasn’t that serious. “No wonder no one in the coven likes me,”

“They mostly dislike you because of me,” Raphael admitted.

“What do you mean?”

“They think I favour you.” Raphael said looking up at him. “Usually I don’t train fledglings, I pass that duty on to Lily. So the others assume that my giving you my attention so much is favouring you and since you’re new to us, they get jealous. Some of them have been vying for my favour since I became Camille’s second in command. They think you have that what they want, so they dislike you.”

“Oh.” Simon murmured. Made sense. “And do I?”

“Do you what?”

“Have your favour?”

Raphael actually grinned at that. “You could call it that I suppose.”

“So why train me, not pass me off to Lily?” Simon asked. “Why give your attention to me if I just annoy you and it unsettles your other people?”

“I made a promise to that Shadowhunter girl to look after you,” Raphael said. “Vampires might be vile and cursed but we don’t go back on our word.”

Simon’s eyes flickered to his feet. He knew it. Raphael hated him, he was just tolerating him for his promise to Clary.

“And besides,” Raphael continued, making Simon glance up again. “You’re not nearly as annoying as you think.”

“I’m…I’m not?”

“Don’t tell anyone I said this, but it’s kind of cute.” Raphael shrugged. “And I’m getting used to it.”

Simon felt himself blush scarlet. Did Raphael just call him cute? If his heart beat it would be beating out of his chest right now.

“And Simon?”

“Y-Yeah?” Simon snapped out of his thoughts and blinked at the other vampire. Raphael looked pained.

“When I tell you to leave…I don’t want you to actually leave.” He said slowly.     

“Then why…?”

“I tell you to go away because I need time to calm down. I don’t want you to _go_ , I just need to be alone for a moment. When you run off you go to either those rabid mutts or get yourself lost or hurt in some way and I –“

Raphael actually looked nervous as he broke off. Simon thought he was witnessing a miracle.

“Look just don’t worry me again okay?” Raphael muttered, his expression turning irritable.

Simon smiled. “You were worried? About me?”

Raphael just huffed and walked faster, letting Simon laugh as he hurried to catch up.

“Aha I knew it! Knew you liked me!” Simon cheered.

He spotted a barely visible smile on Raphael’s face, but the vampire didn’t answer. In the end Simon did get sick, and Raphael put up with his groaning by his bedside, bringing him blood and comic books from his old home at night to help him feel better. If Simon had been feeling better he’d have teased Raphael, but then again if he did, he might stop being kind. And Simon liked it when Raphael was kind. Every day while Simon was sick, as the vampire curled up to sleep and Raphael left for his own room, just as Simon was drifting off, he’d hear words, spoken so softly they were barely there.

_Te amo, mi amor_

Simon kept meaning to ask Raphael what the words meant, but he always fell asleep before he could, and always forgot the next day. He thought the words were in his imagination, but he never failed to hear them every day. What he did miss, was Raphael’s rare but genuine smile, and the soft touch of his lips to his forehead before he left the room. If only Simon had been awake for that.


End file.
